New Space Camp movie coming soon!

Kemara · Post by **Kemara** » Fri Jul 12, 2002 8:22 am

Hey guys! Yes, its true, there will be a new movie about Space Camp coming out in the next year or so. Its a true story based on the book called "A Smile as Big as the Moon," about a special ed. teacher who fights to take his class to Space Camp in '87. I have the book and it is wonderful. The Web site is www.spaceisspecial.org. Here's a copy of an article that ran in USA Today recently.

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Former football coach and special-ed teacher Mike Kersjes says that in the movie version of his life, he wouldn't mind Tom Cruise playing him -- Cruise is outspoken about having dyslexia.
"But he's got more hair than I did," Kersjes notes.

Most teachers who imagine movies being made about their careers would just be fantasizing, but Kersjes really is about to become the subject of a new movie. The rights to his story have been snapped up by producer Jerry Bruckheimer, whose hits include Top Gun, starring Cruise.

Kersjes' recently released book, A Smile as Big as the Moon (St. Martin' s Press), recounts his two-year battle in 1987 to bring a class of Michigan special-education students to Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., where they competed against the best and the brightest U.S. students during a mentally and physically challenging week modeled after astronaut training.

Einstein's Children is the title currently being bandied about in Bruckheimer's Hollywood office, where screenwriter John Norville (Tin Cup) has been tapped to write a movie script. With luck, they say, the movie should be in theaters in about a year.

The Hollywood angle: "How Mike persevered to get them there -- and once they got there, they placed second. It's got a lot of heart," says Bruckheimer, producer of Black Hawk Down, Flashdance and the hit TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

The Kersjes movie, he says, would resemble the 2000 hit film Remember the Titans, which starred Denzel Washington as the football coach at a newly integrated high school in the 1970s. Like the coaches in Titans, "Mike changed the lives of his students," Bruckheimer says.

Kersjes has given up teaching and coaching to focus on his non-profit foundation, Space Is Special (spaceisspecial .org), which helps bring the Space Camp opportunity to special-needs students nationwide. So far, more than 2,000 special-ed kids have been to the camp; this month, he'll escort 200 more from three states. This weekend, he's in Washington, D.C., to meet with Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., on a plan to bring special-ed kids there more opportunities in math, science and technology.

People weren't as receptive back in 1987, when most people shot down his suggestion that his class of special-ed kids -- students with Down syndrome, Tourette's syndrome, dyslexia, and emotional and attention problems -- attend a camp traditionally reserved for elite gifted and talented students.

"There was a reluctance and a belief that special-needs kids didn' t fit in the realm of Space Camp," says Kersjes, 48. "People presumed they couldn't do anything." His book recounts the team's struggle to raise $50,000 and train students unaccustomed to rigorous academics; his was the first group of special-ed students at Space Camp. Space campers train to be able to work as a team in a weightless environment, navigating complex control panels and unforeseen catastrophes to fly a simulated space mission. Last month, a Space Is Special group won four out of five top Space Camp awards.

"It took 13 years of proving to people it does work," Kersjes says. "We've gone from Michigan to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Now we're moving the program out to the Rockies."

With a stop in Hollywood.

Karen Thomas, Space really is special. , USA Today, 05-02-2002, pp 09D.

Post by **Vincent** » Fri Jul 12, 2002 8:46 am

Yeah...the last thing I read in that book the other day was the back inside cover...

"The film rights for his book have been sold to Jerry Bruckheimer for Walt DIsney Pictures"

all I thought was, "woohoo!"

...this is sort of (in a way) like SpaceCamp 2 that we talked about in a threaed a while back! Go figure!

Post by **Vincent** » Fri Jul 12, 2002 9:12 am

Wow...I knew all of that looked familiar! It came out on May 2...and I actually read it...

...guess I forgot to mention it!

Well, in my defense, A Smile as Big as the Moon wasn't really on my radar screen much until then...

...guess I sorta dropped the ball there!

Boomerang · Post by **Boomerang** » Fri Jul 12, 2002 9:59 am

Well i cant wait till the movie comes out. I still need to get a copy of the book to read everyone here seems to like it. This sounds alot like a Cool Runnings type of disney movie without all the comedy. It sounds like it will be funn, inspiring, and intresting.